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12 Responses to How do we know we got the best deal?

Our esteemed City Manager apparently came to town already focused on getting Great Wolf here, whatever it took. We now know what it will take…assuming that GWL decides that the bribe offered is big enough. Got to wonder what is next for Mr. G.

Gonzalez is a “Carpet bagger”, just passing through to get very RICH and to fleece all of US “stupid, ignorant peons”. But of course HE has to take the local politicians along for the “gold digging”. One person can only hide, lie, deceive so much, got to have “Partners”.

Joyce Wilson and Tommy Gonzalez have a lot in common. They are building personal wealth and on the backs of taxpayers who will be paying for their mismanagement and malfeasance long after Wilson and Gonzalez have moved on to other opportunities they created for themselves using our money. The City of El Paso will be bankrupt, but Wilson and Gonzalez will be drawing pensions paid for by us.

We know that El Taxo POLITICIANS, Dee Margo, City Council, Commissioners, got the best “Deal” for themselves, big business, Developers THEY REPRESENT, when they are laughing all the way to the bank with money falling out of their carpet bags. And of course THEY are going to INCREASE OUR TAXES to pay for whatever THEY want THIS time. One of the “Brokest” cities in the country has the RICHEST politicians.

This is not a situation of a city selecting a vendor to provide a necessary public service. The city shouldn’t even be financially involved in this. This is very, very wrong. This is grand theft in broad daylight.

And what would you call NY City’s bid for Amazon’s HQ2? Or Virginia’s? You may not like it but every city in the country is handing out tax breaks. It’s going to get tougher and tougher for cities like El Paso to compete for jobs. But wait….isn’t that what the ankle biters are also saying? We need more businesses in El Paso for jobs and to ease the tax burden?

Tax breaks for businesses that create transformative jobs (meaning jobs where workers increase skills and pay via on the job training), aren’t bad. But Great Wolf isn’t that. The Amazon HQ will have a lot of higher paying jobs but in a place like NYC it is questionable whether paying that level of incentive to attract a business similar to what is already there is necessary. The bottom line is that if EP was waving this level of money at multiple companies with transformative jobs (like higher tech manufacturers who would be less likely to see huge cost benefits in Mexico), we’d be better off. But our local politicians don’t understand that segment of the economy so they convince themselves that this is economic development.

Yes and Metro areas like New York, Chicago, Dallas, have MILLIONS of people and the TAX BASE to give big businesses tax “Breaks”, as an incentive to build, operate there. In El Taxo, the “Jobs” are like $5 bucks an hour selling beer, hot dogs, sweeping up, carrying out the trash, etc. That’s the “Jobs” at the ball field TAXPAYERS were forced to buy and that will be the “Jobs” at the hotel, water park that the Mayor, City Council will shaft the TAXPAYERS with paying for. Maids, Servers, pool cleaners, clerks, etc. A “job market” for the 100,000 or so Illegals that LIVE HERE. And WHO, traveling through El Taxo on I-10, going, East or West, is going to stop and blow-off $300-400 or MORE for a night in a hotel and let the kids take a dip in the pool?? This town is BILLIONS$$$ in debt and it grows everyday, ALL on the backs of taxpayers, HOME OWNERS. The rich get richer and so do the POLITICIANS.

The city is required to ask for competitive bids when they are purchasing a good or service for the use of the city itself, such as buses, new fire trucks, or a building that is owned by the city like a library. Ballparks, hotels, waterparks, retail shops, shopping centers are not owned or run by the city, therefore they don’t fall under the need or the law to go out to bid. Besides, how many high end hotels have indoor water parks willing to build in the middle of a desert on land owned by a city that was swapped with a billionaire at a fraction of it’s original cost? How many would fit that competitive bid? It sounds totally legitimate.